Every blog post needs to be about your audience
Sometimes it’s a struggle to figure out what to write in your blog. There are some decisions you need to make first.
What is your brand?
Before you write a word, you need to understand what is your brand. That defines what you will deliver to your customers. And that is what you need to write about in your blog, social media updates, PR and advertising.
If you’re a reporter, your brand is your assignment editor.
Its all about your customers
Blogs are like bacon to search engines. But that is only if you are blogging what consumers are searching for:
- Answers to their questions
- Solutions to their problems
- Instructions to improve their lives
Note they’re not looking for you. Your audience wants your insights into what can help them.
Personal vs. personality
Like I said, the blog is about your audience not you. So don’t blog about what you are watching on TV or eating.
You can use stories to illustrate your customers’ problems. It creates some empathy between you and your audience. And it’s a way to show personality while making your point. But focus on showing personality through your writing style. Write with your voice.
- Pretend you are writing an e-mail: How would you explain this to a friend? Treat your blog posts like messages to someone who wants to know more about what you do.
- Read it aloud: Read it to yourself and you will catch all kinds of mistakes and awkwardness. Change anything that you aren’t comfortable saying.
Use social media to be personal. It’s a great way to use your personal brand professionally.
How to motivate readers
Sex, food and danger are themes that motivate audiences to read your content. But that doesn’t always fit into your brand. Then go positive.
Positive is the new sexy. Searchers are more likely to click through to positive content than negative content. To be honest, negative content is really easy to produce. So it’s not that rare.
Plus content that focuses on helping the readers is seen as positive content.
But here’s the problem. Don’t go overboard with the happy horseshit sunshine. It might hurt your credibility. You have to acknowledge the problems.
So you can criticize but offer something that gives readers a way to achieve their goals.
Be careful. It’s a branding decision. If that’s how you want to be known, then go with it.
Personally, I can do more good by keeping it positive.
Where to find good ideas
Well you can subscribe to my newsletter for topics. Or you can come to Friday’s Social Media Breakfast session on blogging in business.
And keep reading this blog. I will keep talking about where you can find ideas for all your content – not just blogging.
